Semantic architecture is a concept in software architecture. It proposes the creation of more useful architecture descriptions which can unambiguously capture, catalog, communicate, preserve, and can interoperably exchange semantics between different architectures.

Overview

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The overall goals of the semantic architecture are

  • to define a formal semantic way of representing architecture intended to be both human and machine readable
  • to describe a system architecture at a high level of abstraction
  • to support automatic generation of software architecture models
  • to permit analysis of architectural quality attributes
  • to provide a repository of patterns expressed utilizing the semantic web standards RDF/S and OWL

In order to achieve these goals, the software architecture community and industry need to define

  • a common architecture description language
  • an OWL ontology for architecture data models
  • a set of tools for capturing, querying, and visualizing all aspects and view points of an architecture

The tooling or toolkits for semantic architecture should

  • be suitable for communicating an architecture to all stakeholders
  • supports architecture creation, refinement, evaluation, and validation of quality attributes
  • provides a basis for further implementation
  • allows the architecture community to exchange semantics of architecture styles and patterns in an interoperable fashion

See also

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